Smart Business Magazine, Oct 2012

8 Smart Business Florida October 2012 Click or scan to read more columns by Joy Gendusa STOP WORRYING ABOUT SLOW SEASONS How to bring in consistent business through a marketing approach and plan If you own or operate a business you have probably experienced slow periods where revenue was declining and you didnt have enough leads coming in But there is actually a way to market yourself so that you are not at the mercy of the season or economy again There are two things that you need to control your revenue year round an integrated marketing approach and an organized marketing plan Heres how to do it Integration Integration means that each piece of your marketing works together in a coordinated way For example an integrated approach might look like this You have a direct mail postcard campaign that drives traffic to your website Your website is optimized to convert that traffic into leads by getting them to fill out a form Then that form populates your email database and your leads receive pre determined emails from you for the next six months During that time your sales team follows up with the prospects over the phone Of course the specific strategies that make up an integrated campaign vary by industry but what follows is a good general outline How to integrate In order to fully integrate your marketing approach you will need the following systems in place 1 Lead generation For this I suggest direct mail postcards There are other options such as television radio billboards letters and more But I have found postcards to be the most cost effective 2 Lead reception Receptionists should have a predetermined way to handle callers and gather their contact information Your website needs to be optimized to gather prospects contact information which is easily done by offering free downloads where the prospect is prompted to fill out a simple form 3 Follow up Youll want to go with an email service for this because email is the most affordable follow up option available and usually yields great results when used in this capacity Postcards and phone calls are also great for follow up too The Internet is also a great resource to learn more about each of these elements Organization It is one thing to have an integrated marketing approach and it is another thing to have an organized fully integrated marketing plan It may sound obvious but you need to be intentional and organized about exactly how the pieces of your marketing plan will integrate For example how many days will go by before an online prospect receives the first email from you How many days will you wait until you call your prospects Does the design on your postcard match the design of your website The best way to handle this is to sit down with your marketing staff or by yourself if you dont have a marketing staff and evaluate the process beginning with lead generation and continuing all the way to the sale Youll also need to answer the questions that come up along the way Some of these questions youll want to ask and answer include the following How am I going to generate leads How am I going to receive these leads Is the method of reception going to immediately let the prospect know they are in the right place How am I going to get prospects contact information How am I going to follow up with leads How are my different follow up methods going to work together How often should I contact my leads Once you have built a solid structure for your marketing campaign you can get to work implementing it As you do you will notice that your revenue numbers follow a pattern that correlates to your marketing output And when that happens youll have confidence that even in your off seasons you can get the leads you need by simply increasing your marketing output Marketing Maniacs Joy Gendusa JOY GENDUSA is the owner and CEO of direct mail marketing firm PostcardMania She began PostcardMania in 1998 with nothing but a phone and a computer never taking a dime of investment capital Since then PostcardMania has expanded to offer its clients more services including website and landing page design and development email marketing and full marketing evaluations all while continuing to educate clients with free marketing advice Visit www postcardmania com for more information